A Powerful Message of Peace From a Café

At Starbucks locations across Japan you’ll find simple, but tasteful woody interior design and chalkboards with a handwritten message of the day on them. Usually, these messages are pretty lighthearted and inconsequential. But on August 15, 2017, one Starbucks branch in the city of Nagasaki decided to take a moment and ponder a deeper topic.

Almost all of the beans for the coffee we drink are imported from Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and other regions of political stability. A year from now, that coffee, which we find so delicious, might be something we can no longer drink, as a product of civil war and other conflicts.

Coffee is often described with words like “comforting,” “relaxing,” or “soothing,” but it can actually come from perilous parts of the world.

You probably don’t think of the concepts of war and peace having such a direct connection to yourself, but now, as you’re drinking your coffee or Frappuccino, knowing that you might not be able to do so in the future, is this not an opportunity to reflect on peace.

This is the 72nd summer since the end of World War II. What does “peace” mean to you?